Picture Lakitu with a camera flying around with the accompanying whooshing sounds.

Last is just the... second to last loser. I think that's how it works?

And hello to Project X Zone for an equally little while.

Fashionably late. And my, what fashion these two have!

Ugh! You are so late! You have to be the laziest private tutor in the world! I've already given up on you actually teaching me anything useful. But the least you could do at a time like this is help me out a little, Kogoro!Hey, m'lady, don't get so worked up. It'll make your skin break out again. I just had a bit of an issue I needed to clear up at the office.

"Someone at the office was doing a lotto pool and I just had to contribute! You know the jackpot is over $500 million now?"

I'll keep on the lookout during this imagefest for faces that would make good emoticons to fill out that second row (and because it's forever since I added a new emoticon). There may be a :mii: in the future for this one.

But... but...

Quote

I've already given up on you actually teaching me anything useful.

This particular issue, though... I think I know what it is about.What issue? What are you... You mean the stone that was taken from my mansion?

The portalstone? You know, the rock that makes cake and space jokes?

"I am nameless mook. I take care of the place while the master is away."

Ahhh! What're these monsters?!Looks like our culprits haven't given up robbing you blind just yet.

They left with the portalstone, and they came back for your beanie baby collection.

Ugh! We gotta catch 'em and find out where they took the stone! Kogoro! Let's get 'em!As you wish, m'lady. I think now's the time to show off some of my Tenzai Ninjutsu.Hee hee! ♪ Let's see if it's anything worthy of my praise for a change.Hopefully, a little roughing up is all this is going to take. But somehow I get the feeling this is just the beginning of things.

Just like in NxC, the title card tends to come after a rather hefty bit of dialogue.

Here are your typical SRPG win conditions.

Here are a bunch of words about how to play this game!

Mii apparently understands how this game works. Here are some rules of PxZ/NxC for the uninitiated:

1. Something will happen.2. It will probably not make sense.3. It will probably not matter in the big picture.4. More characters will appear.5. More characters will appear.6. Rinse and repeat for approximately 100 hours.

I wonder about the wisdom of giving guns to high school girls, though.Well, everyone in the Koryuji clan has them. We're a family of fighting monks!

Monks with guns.

Besides, what kind of detective carries a sword around like that?A smart one, that's who. It's just the thing for dealing with evil thugs.

Imagine how the Ace Attorney games would be if Detective Gumshoe had a sword.

Plus, my sword skill qualifies me to teach you martial arts, no?Yeah, but I wish we'd move on to ninjutsu sometime.You're still only in high school, m'lady. A few more years, then we'll talk.

Until you're responsible enough to use ninjutsu, you'll have to settle for guns.

None of that "Tenzai Ninjutsu" nonsense, please!

It's like, "yo baby, look at my Tenzai Ninjutsu." You know what they say to me? They fuckin' laugh.

Write the story to this game, and turn that in to composition class! Instant A+++++, I guarantee it.

Yes, XP is Cross Points. I guess it's like this game's MP. Experience Points is EXP.

It's time to play the game! Yes! Yes! Yes!

The game lets you rotate the camera but you can only go so far with it. Not sure yet how useful it'll prove to be. In other SRPGs I often made use of the vertical tilt to see the terrain better but I don't remember if I can do that in this game (and forgot to try). Oh well!

Hey look, an enemy in range! This sucker's about to get Tenzaied.

Thought the dialogue was confined to the wide world outside battle? Big mistake!

Here's the battle screen before stuff happens.

Here's the battle screen while stuff happens.

... Alright, you deserve a bit more explanation than that.

Up until the title card, the bottom screen showed only this.

Then once the battle started, this showed up. It's just a turn order and stat display.

Here are both battle screens together.

The top screen shows the enemy's HP, your XP, some D-pad symbols, and an ATTACK meter. The D-pad symbols are just a move list, with the greyed-out ones being moves you have used during this battle. The ATTACK meter shows the number of attacks your units can perform during this battle. In this pic, I've used one of my three allotted attacks. Once you use them all, the battle ends.

The bottom screen is a move list. The top ones (with the A button) are standard moves and the bottom one (with the Y button) is a special move. The yellow "S" icon by a move means it influcts the Stun status condition. I think you get more moves as you level up? But anyway, . The special move uses 100% XP. I don't use it in this chapter but you'll definitely see it later!

The end-of-battle results screen shows end-of-battle results. The CRITICAL count is the number of CRITICAL attacks you get in battle, which are attacks landed immediately before an enemy hits the ground. CROSS attacks aren't available yet at this point in the game. The battle system has a big emphasis on juggling, so keeping the enemy off the ground is the bestest pro strat. Getting CROSS and CRITICAL moves in gives you XP bonuses.

Got all that? If not, don't worry. Mashing buttons seems to be more than good enough!

You are only allowed 99 turns of PxZ fun per stage.

Unlike in NxC, where enemy attacks were fights just like your own, here it just bonks you on the head and a number pops out. If you choose counter, you get a battle afterward but your number of attacks is lowered by 2. Defend lowers damage, and full defend lowers damage dramatically. Both defend types prevent status effects. The alternative is to do nothing and save your XP.

After all the enemies act, the game says TURN END and then it's your turn again.

If it worked on cheerleaders, it'll work on you too, punk!

Nice jump there, Kogoro?

Basically their attacks are all Mii shooting stuff while Kogoro jumps around and shows off his Tenzai Ninjutsu.

I don't get this attack name. I really, really don't. Maybe there's a purple pot in there somewhere but with so much shit on the screen it's hard to tell.

<Mario Party Announcer> GOT ITEM!

This game gives you a shitton of items, by the way. Eventually you're like damn, where did all these come from?

No, but you're fighting for the amusement of all the viewers at home.

poof

Here's a move where Mii kicks people instead of shooting them.

Here's a... what. What am I even looking at?

Kogoro notices he's on the wrong side of that high kick.

I'm sure these weren't even meant to be viewed as stills but damn. Kogoro's been hittin' up the Subway lately.

That means it can't be beaten and also that you can't beat it.

And that's a follow-up to a comment about Tenzai Ninjutsu's beatability deficiency.

Friendly fire is, fortunately, turned off in this game.

The amount of EXP needed to level increases with each level, rather than always requiring 100 and decreasing your earnings as you level like in many other SRPGs.

That's over with! Time to go hang out by the green glowly column thing by the fountain.

I think that's all of them. Why did they bother coming back?They already have the stone. There's nothing left for them to take.They have to be here for a reason. We better take a look around.

> Project X Zone> for a reason

muttley laugh.avi

Oooh, trying to play the master detective again, aren't you?That's because I AM a detective, m'lady.

And I feel bad for Mii, legit. Her bra straps just like ... mysteriously snap or regenerate or slip or tighten between frames. She's basically wearing a chaos bra, and that's gotta be tough to walk out your front door with.

I'm straight, and I don't like insinuations that I'm not straight. It's easy to say "not that there's anything wrong with that", but for me, I'm straight, so there is something wrong with me being gay, that being that I'm not gay. I'm proud of being straight and the idea of being gay goes against my biological wiring.

Tenda: It actually kind of looks like they were trying to make the strap's position match her facial expression. I bet there's some serious science behind it, whatever it is! There might be some wardrobe malfunction fanart of her out there... if I find any, I'll post it.

Kenny: Yeah, judging by what Kogoro says here she's like 15-16 or something but IMO she looks a good 10 years older than that. Or maybe she is that old and she failed a bunch.